[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
______________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
DAVID G. VALADAO, California, Chairman
NICK LaLOTA, New York ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York,
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama Ranking Member
CELESTE MALOY, Utah STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia, MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
Vice Chair
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full
committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Lori Groves Rowley and April Lyman
Subcommittee Staff
___________________
PART 2
Page
Government Accountability Office, Congressional
Budget Office, and the United States Government
Publishing Office.......................................... 1
Public Witness Day........................................... 85
John C. Stennis for Public Service Training and
Development, Office of Congressional Workplace
Rights, and Congressional Office for International
Leadership................................................. 169
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______________________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-506 WASHINGTON : 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,
Chairman Emeritus
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BEN CLINE, Virginia
GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
TONY GONZALES, Texas
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
NICK LaLOTA, New York
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama
CELESTE MALOY, Utah
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut,
Ranking Member
STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
GRACE MENG, New York
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
PETE AGUILAR, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
NORMA J. TORRES, California
ED CASE, Hawaii
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
MIKE LEVIN, California
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
Washington
GLENN IVEY, Maryland
Susan Ross, Chief Clerk and Staff Director
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
April 9, 2025
Government Accountability Office
Page
Hon. Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General, U.S. Government
Accountability Office.......................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Answers to submitted questions............................... 61
Government Publishing Office
Hon. Hugh Halpern, Director, Government Publishing Office........ 17
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Answers to submitted questions............................... 75
Congressional Budget Office
Phillip L. Swagel, Ph.D., Director, Congressional Budget Office.. 25
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Answers to submitted questions............................... 79
April 9, 2025
Public Witness Day
Omar Awan, Founder, HillClimbers.org............................. 97
Jesse Shirek, Government Affairs Specialist, National Federation
of the Blind................................................... 104
John D. Rackey, Senior Policy Analyst, Structural Democracy
Project, Bipartisan Policy Center.............................. 109
Daniel Schuman, Executive Director, American Governance Institute 116
Dan Lips, Senior Fellow, Foundation for American Innovation...... 122
James Townsend, Director, Carl Levin Center for Oversight and
Democracy, Wayne State University.............................. 128
Michael Stern, Former Senior Counsel, House Office of General
Counsel........................................................ 135
Danielle Stewart, Advisor for Congressional Initiatives, Popvox
Foundation..................................................... 142
Nicholas Hart, President and CEO, Data Foundation................ 148
Antoine McGrath, Creator, CRSReports.com......................... 155
April 29, 2025
John C. Stennis Center for Public Service Training and Development
Dr. Brian Pugh, Executive Director, John C. Stennis Center for
Public Service Training and Development........................ 170
Prepared statement........................................... 174
Office of Concressional Workplace Rights
Mr. Martin Crane, Executive Director, Office of Congressional
Workplace Rights............................................... 179
Prepared statement........................................... 182
Congressional Office for International Leadership
Ms. Jane Sargus, Executive Director, Congressional Office for
International Leadership....................................... 187
Prepared statement........................................... 190
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
----------
Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, AND THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
WITNESSES
HON. GENE L. DODARO, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
HON. HUGH NATHANIAL HALPERN, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
PHILLIP L. SWAGEL, PH.D., DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
Mr. Valadao. The subcommittee will come to order.
The subject of today's hearing is the fiscal year 2026
budget requests for the Government Accountability Office, GAO;
the Government Publishing Office, the GPO; and the
Congressional Budget Office, the CBO.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat, our
committee members, Comptroller General Dodaro, Director
Halpern, and Director Swagel for being here today.
I would also like to thank each and every one of your staff
for the work they do to help Congress and the entire government
function in an effective and efficient manner.
The Government Accountability Office's fiscal year 2026
budget request totals nearly $934 million, a 15-percent
increase from the enacted fiscal year 2025 CR.
The U.S. Government Publishing Office requests $135 million
for fiscal year 2026, a modest increase of 2.6 percent.
And the Congressional Budget Office's fiscal year 2026
request is $75.8 million, an increase of 8.2 percent.
Thank you again for joining us today, and I look forward to
hearing your testimonies and learning more about your budget
priorities for fiscal year 2026.
I now recognize Ranking Member Espaillat for his opening
remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all.
Mr. Dodaro--is that right?
Mr. Dodaro. Close enough.
Mr. Espaillat. Okay. Coming from ``Espaillat,'' I can feel
your pain.
But Mr. Swagel and Halpern, thank you all for being here
today. And I commend each of you and your staff for your
efforts reinforcing Congress's constitutional power and role of
the power of the purse that we have here and dedicating your
resources to keep up with that constitutional mandate.
Mr. Dodaro, it is my understanding that your term ends in
December. Your commitment to government at the GAO has been
unwavering. We commend you for your efforts, your work. And we
hope that you enjoy and you kick up your feet and feel the
tropical breeze somewhere.
But, also, for fiscal year 2026, the GAO has requested, as
was said, $933 million, an increase of 15 percent. We look
forward to hearing about that.
The Congressional Budget Office has requested $75.8
million, representing an 8.2-percent increase. We spoke about
that already, and we hope to hear more about that.
And the Government Publishing Office has requested $135
million, an increase of 2.6 percent. And we look forward to
talking about that.
And I hope that we have a good discussion to understand
where these proposals are going and the impact that it will
have on the American people and the districts that we
represent.
But we thank you all for your service.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
I now recognize Comptroller General Dodaro.
Your full testimony has been submitted for the record, and
you are now recognized to provide a summary of your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. GENE L. DODARO
Mr. Dodaro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Espaillat, members of the subcommittee. I am very
pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's 2026 budget request.
I appreciate the support this committee has given us in the
past. We have returned handsomely on that investment. Last
year, as a result of implementation of our savings, about $68
billion in financial benefits accrued to the government. Over
the last 6 years, we have returned $123 for every dollar that
you have given us at the GAO.
This year, for example, we updated our High Risk List which
we keep of areas we believe to be at risk of fraud, waste,
abuse, mismanagement, or in need of broad-based transformation.
That work has saved almost $760 billion over the years, about
$40 billion a year.
That includes the Medicare and Medicaid program, weapons
systems acquisitions, Bureau of Prisons, VA healthcare,
oversight of medical products, food safety, et cetera. It is a
very expansive list of some of the most important functions of
the Federal Government, including tax administration.
This year, we added improving the delivery of disaster
assistance. FEMA is stretched way too thin. They are still
managing 600 disaster declarations, some dating back 20 years.
There needs to be reform. Over 30 Federal agencies participate
in this activity. Survivors are confused on where to get
assistance, particularly in the recovery period, which has a
long tail over time.
Our work highlighting annual reports on overlap,
duplication, and fragmentation of the Federal Government has
been producing good results. We have had over 2,000
recommendations. Seventy-three percent have been fully or
partially implemented. That has saved $667 billion to the
Federal Government. We will be releasing our next report, this
year's report, next month, and so we will have additional
opportunities.
The reason we are asking for an increase is, we had a
modest increase back from 2023 to 2024 of 2.7 percent increase,
and, of course, we have held flat this year in fiscal 2025. We
have had to absorb cost-of-living increases of over 5 percent
in 2024 to 2 percent last year.
So our staffing level is down, while demand from the
Congress remains high for GAO work. We get over 600 requests a
year for assistance from the Congress. Many of them come in the
form of the highest priority, which is statutory mandates and
committee or conference reports. For example, the latest NDAA
has 95 mandates for GAO's work; FAA Reauthorization and the
Water Resources Act have another 50. That is on top of 150
recurring mandates we have that prompt our work every year,
like auditing the financial statements of the Federal
Government, for example.
So we are very much looking forward to your careful
consideration of our request.
We are also asking for resources to help us strengthen our
computer security defenses. You know, a lot of the attention
recently about efficiency in the government or whatever has
raised our profile. You know, we are anticipating and seeing
more hits on our website by threat actors and others. It is up
about 30 percent this year from what it was last year, and last
year was high. So we need some money in order to be able to do
that as well.
We are also asking for money to help maintain our
headquarters building. We are in the process now of renting out
additional parts of that building to bring in some additional
revenue that can help offset the costs of that building.
And then, lastly, we are asking for the ability to have
independent leasing authority for our field offices. Now, our
headquarters building, GAO is the sole custodian, so we don't
rely on GSA. But in the field, we have to rely on GSA. And, of
course, they are in the process now of trying to cancel a lot
of leases, but since we are in the legislative branch, it is
not appropriate for them to have control over our leases. That
is why we have independent authority over our personnel in GAO,
since we are an independent, you know, audit organization. The
leasing ability in the field is the last remaining piece that
we need to be totally independent from the executive branch
that we audit on a regular basis. So I would ask for careful
consideration on that issue.
Since it is my last year, in closing, I also want to
commend the GAO people for their service to the Congress and
the country. We have one of the most dedicated and talented
workforces in the world, and I am just very proud of them. And
even though I will be gone, they will carry on in the finest
tradition to serve this committee, this Congress, and this
country.
Thank you very much.
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Mr. Valadao. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
I now recognize Mr. Halpern for a summary of his written
testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. HUGH NATHANIAL HALPERN
Mr. Halpern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Espaillat. I am pleased to be here to present GPO's fiscal year
2026 appropriations request.
On behalf of my 1,649 teammates, thank you so much for your
support in the past and your ongoing support for GPO.
Our request is for $135.4 million for fiscal year 2026,
which is an increase of about $3.4 million over our fiscal year
2025 appropriation. This incorporates increased labor and
material costs, while accommodating certain important
initiatives for Congress and the rest of the legislative
branch.
Our fiscal year 2026 request represents a 2.6 percent
increase over fiscal year 2025, less than the CPI increase over
the prior 12 months.
GPO operates as a business enterprise, and directly
appropriated funds only represent about 9 percent of our total
revenue. In fiscal year 2024, the remainder of our nearly $1.3
billion in revenue came from GPO's billings to its other
Federal customers, including the Department of State, National
Archives, Department of Defense, and countless others. We sell
products and services to those customers and adjust pricing
based on the cost of labor, equipment, materials, and overhead.
As most of GPO's appropriations requests are based on
funding for Congress's own publishing needs and the agency's
administration of the Federal Depository Library Program, we
have also had to increase our appropriations request when faced
with increased costs.
Our model continues to deliver results. We closed our books
for fiscal year 2024 with a net positive income of $57.5
million, enabling us to continue investing in our team, our
equipment, and our campus. It is also important to note that,
given the conditions with our customers and increased materials
costs, I expect our net income to be lower in fiscal year 2025,
though still positive.
Our fiscal year 2026 request includes $83 million for
congressional publishing, which is flat-funded from the prior
several years. It is based on our estimate of Congress's likely
needs, informed by historical trends and available unexpended
balances, and we have factored in increased costs for raw
material and labor.
Our request for the Public Information Programs account,
which lets us fund the Federal Depository Library Program, is
about $42.9 million. That does represent an increase of about
$5 million over fiscal year 2025, largely due to increased
labor costs.
Our final request is for $9.5 million for GPO's revolving
fund to support key technology upgrades, and our request for
this account is about $2 million lower than it has been in the
past.
Forty percent of that amount will support continued
development of XPub, which is our next-generation composition
engine. We are continuing to push forward with the final stages
of development of XPub for bills, resolutions, and amendments.
To date, we are on track with the first phase of user
acceptance testing with the Senate, and I am pleased to report
that the House began testing last month. While I don't have a
firm deployment date, we are continuing to make significant
progress with our customers and hope to deploy this critical
piece of software soon.
The remainder of our revolving fund request is for funds to
support GovInfo, our online trusted digital repository. The
data in that system supports the Library of Congress,
Congress's own bulk data efforts, and dozens of other Federal
agencies, enabling Americans to access government information
digitally rather than just in print. The system receives more
than 142 million requests a month, and the subcommittee's
support allowed us to add 260,000 document packages to the
system last fiscal year.
Lastly, our budget request includes our Inspector General's
full $7.7 million budget request, which will be funded as part
of GPO's agency overhead.
Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and members of
the subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to
testify today, for your continued support, and the support of
your staff. And I look forward to answering any questions you
may have.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Halpern.
And I now recognize Director Swagel for your summary of
your written testimony.
STATEMENT OF PHILLIP L. SWAGEL
Mr. Swagel. Thank you, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to present the Congressional Budget Office's budget
request. And let me start also by thanking you for your
continued support.
CBO requests an appropriation of $75.8 million for fiscal
year 2026. That is an increase of $5.8 million, or 8.2 percent,
from the amount provided in 2025 and in 2024. The request would
address increased costs for pay and benefits, allow CBO to
improve its IT infrastructure, and enable us to add staff in
areas of especially intense legislative interest.
CBO's mission is to provide nonpartisan analysis to the
Congress that is timely, rigorous, and transparent. When
legislation is heading to a vote, we provide cost estimates and
real-time analysis of amendments, sometimes hundreds or even
thousands of them, for bills such as the NDAA. We provide
analysis and technical assistance for legislation, such as we
are doing now with reconciliation.
We produce budget and economic projections that incorporate
the effects of recent legislation, recent economic
developments, and administrative actions. As an example, with
tariffs, we are analyzing those changes and looking to provide
Congress with information on the budgetary effects and the
economic effects.
And we provide analysis of a broad range of policy issues
confronting the Congress, bringing to bear data and research
from a variety of sources, including experts suggested by
Members, for which we are grateful.
With continued strong interest in our work, additional
resources that we are requesting would enable CBO to do even
better on both responsiveness and transparency.
In 2025, CBO will maintain its staffing of 270 employees
and focus on the highest-priority efforts of cost estimates,
technical assistance for legislation, and analyzing the economy
and budget effects of proposed policies. We are reducing
expenditures elsewhere this year. We are deferring some hiring
and waiting on some longer-term improvements in our IT
infrastructure.
For 2026, for next year, a little more than half of our
requested increase, about $3 million, would cover increases in
current employees' salaries and benefits and allow CBO to
expand in key areas of congressional interest.
The full request would allow CBO to add 15 employees, to go
to 285, and I would add analysts in the areas of especially
strong congressional interest. I would start with healthcare,
with macro and dynamic analysis, with national security, and
homeland security, including analysis of immigration.
The remaining 48 percent of CBO's increase, about $2.8
million, would address the increased cost to enhance our
cybersecurity and IT infrastructure, including some of the
projects that are now on hold.
CBO's requested budget would support our goal to provide
budgetary and economic information when it is most useful to
the Congress. We will support the Appropriations Committee by
providing real-time, provision-by-provision estimates of the 12
annual appropriations bills and of any supplemental
appropriations bills or continuing resolutions.
We will also respond to thousands of requests for technical
assistance and preliminary estimates, often on quick
turnarounds, as committees craft legislation.
We will provide hundreds of cost estimates for legislation,
as required by statute, and provide those cost estimates before
a floor vote for nearly all bills.
We will publish dozens of statutory and requested reports
covering a wide range of topics. Some recent ones are opioids,
Navy shipbuilding, immigration, much more.
And we will offer help by phone, by video call, by email,
and in person to Member offices, to you and your staff, as you
consider and draft legislation or in response to questions
about an estimate or a report. We are here to support you.
In summary, to achieve our goal of being as responsive as
possible, CBO requests an increase of $5.8 million. With your
support, I look forward to continuing to provide timely and
high-quality information to the Congress.
Thank you very much, and I am happy to answer questions.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Swagel.
For questions, I will call on members based on the
seniority of those present when the hearing was called to
order, alternating between majority and minority, and then we
will call on members in order of their arrival. Each will have
5 minutes.
And I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Dodaro, on March 6, GAO responded to a request from
Senators Whitehouse, Schiff, and Padilla with a letter titled
``Observations Regarding the Environmental Protection Agency's
Submission of Notices of Decision on Clear Air Act Preemption
Waivers as Rules Under the Congressional Review Act.''
The letter made legal observations on whether the Biden
administration's action to grant waivers to California under
the Clean Air Act allowing them to ban the sale of internal-
combustion-engine vehicles was subject to a motion of
disapproval under the Congressional Review Act.
While the CRA does not grant the authority to the
Comptroller General or the GAO to make determinations, Congress
does ask the GAO to weigh in when an agency has failed to send
a rule or potential rule over to Congress. This is to ensure
that the administrative rules and actions cannot get around the
congressional review by simply refusing to send them to
Congress.
When a rule is sent, GAO has no further part to play in the
CRA process. In fact, GAO has directly stated that, beyond
weighing in, when an agency fails to submit a rule, as long as
Congress is not deprived of exercising its powers under CRA,
there is no impediment to those powers that a GAO opinion might
cure. And, in those instances, GAO has instead chosen to take
no opinion.
On February 20, the EPA sent over three Clean Air Act
waivers as rulings to Congress for review. As GAO has stated
previously, under the Administrative Procedure Act, which the
CRA follows, Congress has the authority to review any actions
that an agency submits for that purpose, which is why it is
very concerning to me that, in a matter of 8 business days, in
a seemingly partisan and political move, GAO issued
observations that the EPA waivers which have already been
submitted to Congress for review were not rulings and,
therefore, not subject to CRA.
Can you point to one other example where GAO told Congress
that a rule submitted by the executive branch for congressional
review isn't eligible under the CRA?
Mr. Dodaro. Yeah. I will be happy to do that for the
record.
In that case, first I would say, this clearly, I can say
without equivocation, was not a partisan issue.
We also have responsibilities to respond for legal opinions
from Members of Congress----
Mr. Valadao. So----
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Outside of the CRA issue.
The reason it was done quickly is, all we were asked to do
is to explain our prior decisions, which basically said that
orders are not subject to the CRA provision. So all we did was
provide clarification of something we had already done.
Mr. Valadao. So it was a pretty clear question, though. Can
you point to one other example where GAO told Congress that a
rule submitted by the executive branch for Congressional Review
Act isn't eligible for review under the CRA?
Mr. Dodaro. All right. General Counsel informs me we have
no other examples.
Mr. Valadao. Does the GAO have the authority to tell
Congress a rule submitted by the administration for
congressional review is ineligible for said review?
Mr. Dodaro. That decision is done by the Parliamentarian.
We don't make those decisions.
Mr. Valadao. Okay. So the GAO does not have that authority.
Your letter stated, ``In this case, we''--the GAO--``are
presented with a different situation because the actions were
submitted as rules under the CRA, and it is not one in which we
normally issue a legal decision.''
After that very clear statement, GAO then went on to
provide 10 pages of legal observations.
Why did you break with your regular practice and weigh in
on something that is completely counter to historical
precedent?
Mr. Dodaro. Because we were asked by three Members of
Congress to provide our legal views on our prior legal
decisions, something we do all the time.
Mr. Valadao. This letter was pushed out remarkably fast.
And given that it is inconsistent with normal GAO precedent, it
appears to be politically motivated. Can you tell me why the
GAO responded to this request with such speed?
Mr. Dodaro. We were asked to respond. We had already issued
the opinion, and----
Mr. Valadao. Can we expect all further reviews to take 8
days? Is that the new precedent, the new speed that your
department will be acting----
Mr. Dodaro. If we are asked to provide a summary of our
prior decisions, yes.
Mr. Valadao. So 8 days is the new standard.
Mr. Dodaro. For those we are asked to provide summaries of
our prior decisions.
Mr. Valadao. All right.
I know others want to talk about this as well, and my time
is about expired, but thank you.
And I will now call on Mr. Espaillat for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Swagel, we are living in a cost-of-living crisis with
great economic uncertainty, and the families that I represent
are afraid of what will come next. The President's reckless
tariffs against our neighbors and allies have presented this
uncertainty, and the markets really continue to tumble, as
early as this morning.
You wrote in December that higher tariffs will increase
Federal receipts, but in your letter you also explained the
negative effects on the economy of higher tariffs. Those
economic effects are what really matter to the people that I
represent.
Though there is a very high degree of uncertainty
surrounding the administration's recent announcements, I would
like you to give us a nonpartisan, expert opinion on what you
should expect.
The question is: Under President Trump's tariff policy,
should we expect the price of consumer and capital goods to be
more expensive or less expensive?
Mr. Swagel. Oh, okay. Thank you, sir.
Yes. We are analyzing the tariff announcements. And to
directly answer the question, the price of consumer goods, the
things bought by families, by households, and the prices paid
by businesses will go up. The tariffs will reduce the
efficiency of the economy, lead to lower incomes.
Mr. Espaillat. And so what does that mean in real terms for
someone that wants to purchase a television, go to the
supermarket and buy food? What does that mean to the American
public that often is living on fixed income or, you know,
having a hard time making ends meet?
Mr. Swagel. Right. The prices of the things that families
buy will rise, and family incomes will go less far. And then
businesses will see the prices of their inputs go up, and that
will reduce--tend to reduce business investment. That will
reduce hiring and reduce the strength of the economy.
Mr. Espaillat. So this is really reckless. And it is
manifested every day as the markets continue to tumble.
And the kind of increase that you are asking for will lead
us to get additional staffing so that we can make this kind of
impartial, nonpartisan analysis on the economy, correct?
Mr. Swagel. That is correct. The additional staff would
help us do this kind of analysis.
Mr. Espaillat. And you are asking for 15 additional
staffers, right?
Mr. Swagel. That is correct.
Mr. Espaillat. And another question that I had regarding
that--because I know that one of the areas where you have
expressed a keen interest in is the health arena, right?
Mr. Swagel. Uh-huh.
Mr. Espaillat. And health in many ways is also part of the
economy, because the cost of healthcare is so high that it
impacts on real pocketbook issues.
And so I want to know, like, as we move forward and this
tariff war continues to wreck our economy and we continue to
see an effort to potentially cut Medicaid and Medicare from the
American people, two vital programs, really life-and-death
issues--because if I have Medicaid and all of a sudden my
benefits are cut, it is a life-and-death decision--do you
foresee these 15 new folks doing an analysis on the impact of
the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare as it pertains to the
potential tax cuts for the very rich?
Mr. Swagel. Okay. Yes. The people I would look to add,
first and foremost, would be in health. We do analysis of all
the programs you mentioned--Medicaid, Medicare, pharma,
veterans health--and I would add experts in that, because there
is intense congressional interest. And I would----
Mr. Espaillat. And these programs are very costly, right?
So it is almost impossible to save money so that you can give a
tax break to the very rich without touching these vital
programs, like Medicaid, Medicare, and I would dare to say even
Social Security?
Mr. Swagel. I mean, you have pointed to the elements of the
fiscal challenge--the healthcare programs, Social Security,
Medicare--and then revenues on the tax side. And those are the
decisions Congress would have to make in choosing how to
address the fiscal challenge. And we would provide that
analysis, including of the tradeoffs that you are pointing to.
Mr. Espaillat. So I would look forward to making sure that
you have the additional tools and additional staffing to ensure
that we make these kinds of nonpartisan analysis. I think that
will guide us in the right direction, as the stewards of our
budget and having the constitutional responsibility of the
power of the purse to make the right decisions and protect
table and pocketbook issues for the American people.
Thank you, Mr. Swagel.
And I yield back.
Mr. Swagel. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Now I recognize Mr. LaLota for his 5 minutes.
Mr. LaLota. Good morning, Dr. Swagel. How are you doing?
You are going to stay in the hot seat for a few moments.
Mr. Swagel. No. Good.
Mr. LaLota. I hope you don't mind.
Mr. Swagel. Of course.
Mr. LaLota. I appreciate you taking the time to come to my
office yesterday, and I want to continue some of the
conversation we had yesterday----
Mr. Swagel. Uh-huh.
Mr. LaLota [continuing]. Now here.
You are the Director of the Congressional Budget Office,
right?
Mr. Swagel. Yes, sir.
Mr. LaLota. And when you ask ChatGPT what the mission or
focus of the Congressional Budget Office is, the AI tool states
that ``the Congressional Budget Office is a nonpartisan agency
that provides Congress with analyses and projections for budget
and economic decisions.''
Mr. Swagel. Uh-huh.
Mr. LaLota. ``Its main functions are to help Congress
understand the fiscal impact of their policies and to provide
objective, timely data to inform economic and budgetary
decisions.''
Is that a fair summary of your department, sir?
Mr. Swagel. No, that is--that is very good.
Mr. LaLota. Great.
Mr. Swagel. Yeah.
Mr. LaLota. Is it fair to say that a large part of your
staff's work is to research, gather information, process that
information, evaluate it, and ultimately disseminate it to
policymakers here in the Congress?
Mr. Swagel. No, that is exactly right. That is our
mission--to gather, analyze, and then disseminate.
Mr. LaLota. And you have a staff of about 270 people to do
that?
Mr. Swagel. 270, yeah.
Mr. LaLota. And when your staff is doing their jobs to
research and to provide analysis to Congress, do you use
artificial intelligence?
Mr. Swagel. We do now in some limited ways--some things on
the programming side, some things on the, sort of, technical
side. The output side, no. That is, in some sense, our reports,
our analysis, is our judgment.
So the output side, no. The input side, we will use it in
some ways like what you have, to summarize outside information,
but in limited ways.
Mr. LaLota. Is it safe to say that nowadays you are using
the AI tool more than you did a year ago, 2 years ago, 5 years
ago?
Mr. Swagel. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. LaLota. And what benefits in terms of efficiencies
specifically do AI tools provide the CBO?
Mr. Swagel. You know, for some things, it is really an
incredible benefit. On the programming side, converting from,
you know, old code to new code, it is amazing. For summarizing
information, it is very useful, and you showed, you know, a
perfect example.
You know, sometimes it is not quite as good for complicated
issues. And so, you know, we are still a bit wary on it.
Mr. LaLota. But when you are using it, you are seeking to
use it to make work more efficient?
Mr. Swagel. I will give you one example. I had a recent
meeting with someone, and I wanted to know, well, what is this
person's work about. And I didn't do it; one of my staff put,
essentially, you know, his web page--it was a ``him''--his web
page into ChatGPT, and it gave me a page of a summary of what
this person did. And it was pretty spot-on.
Mr. LaLota. Yeah.
Mr. Swagel. So that is an example of the efficiency.
Mr. LaLota. Yeah.
So here is my trouble.
Mr. Swagel. Uh-huh.
Mr. LaLota. You are asking for an 8-percent increase.
Pretty sizable. You know, nowadays, a large part of the
conversation we are having here, especially on this side of the
aisle, is finding efficiencies, reducing costs, cutting
spending, providing new programs and procedures to help make
things more efficient.
At a time where a department that is inherently research-
and process-based has a new tool in AI to avail itself of, at
the same time that you are able to gain those efficiencies, you
are also asking for 8 percent--not 2 or 3 percent, but 8--in
order to build your staff up. And that is a tough thing for us
to square up here.
So I guess my question then, Doctor, is: Why does the CBO
need more people at a time where there is such a tool out there
to make your job more efficient, sir?
Mr. Swagel. No, that is--obviously, that is a completely
fair question, and, you know, thank you for raising it, you
know, yesterday and today.
You know, what I would say is, these new AI tools will help
us. They are a support for us. You know, they do add
efficiencies. The people we add are experts, and they are the
ones doing the analysis.
And so, of an issue that is in front of us, we need the
experts who understand what has happened in the past, what the
situation is now, how what the executive branch is doing
affects the legislation, and then can do that analysis.
So, in some sense it is, our analysts, our people who are
the experts, use these tools, but we need the people.
I can give you an example, but I feel like I have gone on a
bit long.
Mr. LaLota. I appreciate that.
You know, you are in the business of developing reports and
recommendations. Looking internally to your 270-person staff,
have you done an analysis within yourself to figure out what is
the cost-benefit of integrating AI more into your operation?
Because I am still not able to--because of our conversation
yesterday and today--and you are being good and honest and
deliberate, and I appreciate that--but I am still not able to
square why we need more people when you have such a tool out
there to create efficiency.
So I guess my question is, can you show us a report looking
internally to your 270-person department that harnesses AI and
to tell us that, given AI, you might need less people or you
might be able to cut costs or provide more efficiencies? Can
you provide us a report in due time, Doctor, on that?
Mr. Swagel. Oh, absolutely, I can do that. And that is a
useful suggestion. Where it will let us do--you know, to save,
and then, if I have more resources, where AI won't--you know, I
need people, I need resources on top of the AI. I will do that.
Mr. LaLota. Thanks, Doctor.
I yield, Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. LaLota.
Now I yield 5 minutes to Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dodaro, thank you for your service. Good luck.
In the past, you have testified about how the Office of
Management and Budget should make legally binding budget
decisions--that we call ``apportionments''--public. Is that
correct?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Quigley. And can you explain briefly the importance of
making data about these budget decisions public?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, it is very important for us to be able to
track that information to ensure that Congress's power of the
purse is executed as Congress intended. The apportionments
provide that information.
So it is very important for GAO, for our work to make sure
the agencies spend all the money that Congress intended them to
spend but don't spend more than what they are authorized by the
Congress. It provides information to the public and also
directly to the Congress to allow it to exercise its oversight
responsibilities.
Mr. Quigley. It is transparency in how money is spent.
Mr. Dodaro. Absolutely.
Mr. Quigley. In 2022, the FSGG bill, which I helped draft
as chair of the subcommittee, required OMB to make
apportionments public. We then made it a permanent requirement
in 2023.
However, in January of this year, OMB sent this committee a
letter saying that they will no longer operate that website.
In the view of the GAO, is the Office of Management and
Budget in violation of the statutory mandate right now?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Quigley. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to submit
for the record a letter from the GAO's General Counsel to OMB's
Director regarding OMB's action to dismantle the public
apportionments website.
Mr. Valadao. Without objection.
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Mr. Quigley. For the record, this letter lays out the GAO's
legal opinion that the OMB is in violation of the law for
taking down the website that made apportionment decisions
available to the public.
This requirement was enacted, for the record, over former
President Biden and former OMB Director Young's protestations.
Sir, is there any reason that President Trump and the OMB
Director shouldn't be held to the same accountability and
transparency?
Mr. Dodaro. No. No.
Everybody is for transparency until they are held
accountable.
Mr. Quigley. So, to sum up, you all need this information
to do your job saving the government money. We need this
information to do our jobs to fund the government
appropriately. The public needs this information to hold the
Federal Government accountable. And OMB is intentionally
breaking the law to hide this information.
Thank you, sir.
And I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
I now recognize Mr. Strong for 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would first like to express my gratitude to the witnesses
and their staff for their ongoing support and the invaluable
resources they provide to Congress and our country.
Dr. Swagel, as I mentioned to you earlier this week, I am a
data-driven individual. As Congress prepares to move forward on
President Trump's agenda, is it vital that we receive accurate
cost estimates for any legislation?
Mr. Swagel. Yes, sir. And that is my goal, to get you
accurate information.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
In 2021, the Biden Rescue Plan was estimated at a 1.9
trillion--million dollar economic stimulus plan. Do you today
believe that the so-called stimulus plan only cost the American
taxpayers $1.9 trillion? And what percentage of that package
was a total waste?
Mr. Swagel. Ah. Well, it is--it is a good question. It is
something that we do sometimes go back and look--look at
legislation. We haven't had the ability to do that.
And that legislation did, you know, many things. One of the
things it did was contribute to the high inflation that started
in 2021. It, in a sense, meant that the dollars were spent were
less valuable.
And so I am not saying it was a waste, because I haven't
looked at that, but it made--in some sense, it hindered itself.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Given the challenges your office has faced in the past,
will any of the requested funds be directed toward refining the
methodology used for cost estimates, particularly when dealing
with a large-scale legislation, to get true and accurate data
to Members of Congress?
Mr. Swagel. Yes, sir. The people I would add to work on
dynamic analysis and on macro would do just that--look at the
relationship between legislation and the economy, in both
directions.
Mr. Strong. Mr. Dodaro, I realize that there is a high
demand for GAO's services at any given time, with a $26
trillion debt. How does your fiscal year 2026 budget aim to
improve operations and turnaround time for reports to
adequately meet the demand?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. This would provide us with the additional
people. We estimate we are going to lose about 126 people as a
result of the continuing resolution, so this will diminish our
ability to provide timely information to the Congress. So our
request will ensure that we can provide more timely information
to the Congress, that we can give Congress recommendations to
make the government more efficient and effective.
You know, we have been engaged with some of the Department
of Government Efficiency efforts, and they are actually using
our recommendations to help carry out their activities.
So, we are a good investment. GAO pays multiple returns to
the Congress.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Pivoting over to you, Director Halpern, how is the GPO
adapting its pricing model for other Federal customers, such as
the Department of Defense, to ensure it remains financially
sustainable?
Mr. Halpern. Our formula is actually pretty simple. We
charge our customers for the cost of the materials and labor.
Most of DOD's work is actually going out to private
contractors out in your districts. So we are in all 50 States,
most of the territories. And we charge a small fee, sometimes
up to 8 percent, for doing that contracting work to cover our
own overhead.
But our pricing model has been incredibly stable and
represents a strong value for the customers that choose GPO,
say, choosing us instead of DLA.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Mr. Swagel, you just mentioned tariffs would reduce the
efficiency of the U.S. economy. Is a $26 trillion debt an
efficient economy?
Mr. Swagel. No. The large debt undermines the----
Mr. Strong. Is it efficient to pay another country $20
million to produce ``Sesame Street'' to be broadcast?
Mr. Swagel. Uh----
Mr. Strong. Is it efficient for us to buy oil from other
countries when we can produce it in America?
Mr. Swagel. I mean, you know, depending on the particulars,
but the trade deficit is----
Mr. Strong. Is it efficient for 15 million illegal aliens
to come into this country?
Mr. Swagel. I mean, that has had a wide impact for State
and local governments that have borne the biggest burden on the
fiscal side----
Mr. Strong. Is it efficient to fund illegal aliens when we
have U.S. veterans that are sleeping in the streets of America?
Mr. Strong. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Strong.
I now recognize Ms. Maloy for her 5 minutes.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
When you sit this far down on the table, a lot of the
things that you plan on asking have already been asked by the
time they get to you.
But, Mr. Dodaro, you talk about the cost savings that you
found through your work. In your testimony, you indicated that
in fiscal year 2024 GAO's work yielded $67.5 billion in
savings, and then you testified that you save $123 for every
dollar invested in GAO.
Where do those cost-saving estimates come from?
Mr. Dodaro. Typically, we use third-party estimates. They
may come from CBO. They may come from the Congress if the
Congress reduces the agency's budget request.
So, typically, we try to use third-party estimates. And
only if those aren't available, we will make our own estimate.
But then we will run it by the agency--for example, at DOD. If
we say that DOD took action on a recommendation, ``We believe
it saved this much; do you agree?'' And typically they agree.
I believe these estimates are intended to be very
conservative and reliable and accurate.
Ms. Maloy. So you also talked about preventing fraud and
finding savings. How often do you find an area that is ripe
like that and Congress fails to take it up and act on it?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I have a number of open matters for
congressional consideration that Congress has not yet acted
upon. I would be happy to provide it for the record.
For example, you know, I have recommended for years that
the Social Security Administration take the Full Death Master
File and provide it to the Treasury Department so we don't pay
dead people. And I persuaded the Congress after about 10 years,
and right now it is a 3-year pilot. I believe--it has already
saved millions of dollars, prevented fraud, prevented improper
payments--that Congress should make it permanent. That is not
yet done. So that is just giving you one example.
So, you know, Congress has acted in some cases, but in many
cases there are still more that should be done and I have
recommended it. I will provide it for the record.
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Ms. Maloy. Yeah, I would appreciate that. I am also going
to have my staff follow up with you.
Mr. Dodaro. I would be happy to.
Ms. Maloy. Okay.
Mr. Dodaro. Yeah. Any fan of preventing fraud is a fan of
mine.
Ms. Maloy. Okay. Well, I am a fan of that.
Mr. Swagel, when my colleague was reading his ChatGPT
description of your agency, one of the things that he talked
about and you mentioned is the nonpartisan mission of CBO. And
I think you have a bit of a perception problem on the Hill
about that nonpartisan mission.
So I just wanted to ask, how do you, in your hiring
practices, try to ensure that you are hiring and training in a
way that perpetuates the nonpartisan nature of what you do?
Mr. Swagel. Okay. No, thank you. And it is a key aspect of
the agency. I mean, it is really the foundation of what we do,
is be nonpartisan, not taking policy positions.
When we hire, we look carefully at the people we are
hiring, of course, first on the expertise and on the skills
they bring but also to make sure that they are both nonpartisan
and seen as nonpartisan. And, you know, look, we treat a 22-
year-old we are hiring differently than, you know, a 45-year-
old, just--you know, we understand, you know, sort of, the
difference between those two. But we look at that carefully
when we hire.
And after people come on board, we have processes within
the agency to scrutinize our work--you know, this is up and
down and across the agency--to make sure that we are down the
center on the issues.
Ms. Maloy. Okay.
Well, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the rest of my
time.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Maloy.
And I now recognize Mr. Moore for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it very
much.
Question for Comptroller Dodaro. The chairman has talked
about this. I just want to go back to it real quick.
So, in 2018, you issued this letter here to Senator Hatch
in a legal decision that GAO's role was essentially complete
once the executive submits a rule to Congress.
Is that correct?
Mr. Dodaro. As it relates to the Congressional Review Act
submissions. But we have other roles that we have, which
include responding to requests from Congress----
Mr. Moore. Right, but----
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. For clarifications.
Mr. Moore. But you stated in a legal decision that the
GAO's role is essentially complete once the executive submits a
rule to Congress. Is that correct?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct as it relates to CRA. But what
I am saying is, we also have other responsibilities to respond,
by statute, to requests from committees and Members of Congress
for legal decisions. If anybody asks for a legal decision from
GAO, we give it to them----
Mr. Moore. Right.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. I mean, as a service to the
Congress.
Mr. Moore. I am trying to understand, then, why it seemed
that your actions in this case as it relates to the Clean Air
Act waiver for the California EVs mandate seems opposed to that
decision.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, it is not opposed to that decision. I
mean, basically, what it does is explain that decision.
We were asked to clarify our previous legal decisions,
which you could argue is an extension of our CRA
responsibilities. And so all we were asked to do is to--in the
context of what was submitted, to explain our previous
decisions.
The Parliamentarian is the one that decides whether or not
the issue gets put to a vote in the Congress. That is not our
role. Our role is to answer questions from the Congress and to
clarify things.
And when we are asked to clarify a previous legal position,
I think it is important for us to be able to do that, as
opposed to having other people try to interpret our previous
legal decisions.
Mr. Moore. Can I ask you, have you ever spoken to the
Senate Parliamentarian?
Mr. Dodaro. I have not, but my staff has.
Mr. Moore. About this issue specifically?
Mr. Dodaro. I don't think we had any conversation--let me
just check.
No, we did not talk to her on this particular issue.
Mr. Moore. But other issues?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, if she asks for, you know----
Mr. Moore. Does she have to engage you, or do you engage
her?
Mr. Dodaro. It can happen either way depending on the
issues, but typically we respond to her questions if she has
questions on any of our material.
We don't have an ongoing relationship with the
Parliamentarian, if that is what you are asking.
Mr. Moore. And so you are probably not going to be able to
answer this now, but if there are previous interactions in
between GAO and the Senate Parliamentarian, maybe I would
submit a question for the record that they can answer later as
it relates to what were the substance, context, and nature of
those conversations, I would be curious to know.
And then, I mean, you stated this, but the purpose of the
CRA--and this is in your letter--is to strengthen congressional
oversight of agency rulemaking. That is a quote.
GAO decided that, because the agency had submitted the
rule, Congress is--and I quote--able to fully exercise its
review and oversight authorities under CRA and, therefore,
takes no position on whether the action by the agency
constituted a rule.
Do you agree that precedence in this space is crystal-
clear, GAO does not issue legal decisions after an agency has
submitted a rule to Congress?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct. This isn't a legal decision,
what we did. It is a clarification of a previous legal decision
we did. It is not a new legal decision.
Mr. Moore. But would you say it is fair to characterize
that the Parliamentarian's determination is taking it as a
legal decision because of the action that she is taking?
Mr. Dodaro. I can't speak for the Parliamentarian. All I
can do is say, if a Member of Congress comes to us and asks us
to explain a previous legal decision, I would be hard-pressed
to say, ``No, I can't do that.''
I mean, we are just responding to help Congress. We are not
trying to, you know, influence things one way or the other. We
are nonpartisan. We are asked a question, we give an answer,
and it doesn't matter who it is.
Mr. Moore. Well, I do have some reports outstanding that
have been--I mean, folks that have submitted questions that
are--they have been out there for, like, over a year. But this
one got turned around in 10 days.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, that is because it was all----
Mr. Moore. That is amazing.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, not really. You know, basically, all we
are doing is explaining something we already did before.
Most of these other requests are asking for original work,
where we have to go to the agency and get their opinions and
other things. In the case of somebody explaining something of
an opinion we have already given, you know, it should be turned
around quickly.
You know, I don't get very many complaints from Congress
about being timely, you know, so----
Mr. Moore. Well, this seems to be the only one that was.
That is why it is curious.
Mr. Dodaro. It is not the only one where we are timely. It
is the only one I am getting complaints on lately.
But, you know, I am just saying, our responsibility is to
every Member of the Congress, Congress as an institution. If
somebody asks us a question, we are going to give them an
answer.
Mr. Moore. So, obviously, as we have talked about, you
understand the complications around this issue as it relates to
all this. Would you be willing to rescind that decision or
opinion?
Mr. Dodaro. No.
Mr. Moore. No. Would you be willing to provide something in
writing and maybe provide some more clarity around it?
Mr. Dodaro. I would be happy to. If you submit a question
for the record, I would be happy to answer it.
Mr. Moore. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. All right.
If there are no further questions, I would like to thank
the witnesses for being here today.
And, as was mentioned today, I really hope that we use our
taxpayer resources to be fair and balanced and not go down this
path.
And I know there will be additional questions for the
record. I will be submitting some myself.
Mr. Valadao. And this committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 9:58 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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PUBLIC WITNESS DAY
----------
Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAFF SALARIES
WITNESS
OMAR AWAN, FOUNDER, HILLCLIMBERS.ORG
Mr. Valadao. This subcommittee will come to order.
This is the fiscal year 2026 Legislative Branch
Subcommittee Public Witness Day hearing.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat and
committee members for being here today.
A special thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
We appreciate your interest in the legislative branch and for
taking time out of your busy schedules to testify before this
subcommittee.
In addition to our witnesses here this morning, additional
witnesses have submitted testimony for the record, and their
statements may be found online.
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Mr. Valadao. I would also like to note that this hearing
serves as a vehicle for one Member of Congress who submitted
testimony for the record, and her statement can also be found
online.
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STATEMENT OF OMAR AWAN
Mr. Awan. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to
testify.
As you know, actual staff salaries vary between offices and
account for about three-fourths of a Member's budget, but each
Member is provided the same amount. It is known as the ``clerk-
hire'' component of the MRAs.
If we want to stop the revolving door that is straining
institutional knowledge and undercuts legislative and
constituent services, we have to align MRAs with real-world
staffing costs.
Before I retired from the House, I was asked to set all 441
bespoke Member budgets in just 3 months for the incoming 111th
Congress. It was then that I learned that the clerk-hire was
set as $944,000 back in 2010. And I couldn't find any kind of
supporting analysis for where that number came from. It was
marginally increased to $994,000 in 2020.
I knew we could do better as an institution when it was my
job to set those MRAs in 2023, so I conducted a comprehensive
salary analysis that categorized thousands of unique job titles
into the typical roles found in a Member office. I accounted
for staff that wear multiple hats, and I also made sure that
shared staff didn't skew the numbers downwards.
This led to the first meaningful increase in the clerk-hire
in more than a decade, from $994,000 to $1.434 million for
every single Member office.
Even with that increase, turnover in 2023 was still high--
over 60 percent among leg. assistants and over 70 percent among
leg. correspondents.
Since salaries continue to rise with inflation and market
demands, Members are increasingly basically robbing Peter to
pay Paul just to maintain competitive pay. They buy less
supplies and equipment, they send less official mail, or,
worse, they hire less staff so that they can adequately pay the
staff that they have.
In February, I launched HillClimbers.org. It is an online
platform that transforms House SOD data into salary and
staffing insights for Member offices. Our newest data shows
that the average Member office will spend more than $1.5
million this year on salaries and $1.55 million by 2026.
I have two recommendations.
First, I think we need to get the horse before the cart. In
February, appropriators, they set the overall MRA budget, and
they will come up with a number. And then at the end of the
year, CHA, whose job it is to set the individual MRAs, they
have to reverse-engineer all the individual MRAs to fit within
that budget that was set in February.
So, you know, basically, that process is not working. MRAs
have been held flat since 2023 when I set all the MRAs for the
last 2 years because of this process.
I think that CHA and the appropriators should work closely
together in February to figure out, using real data, which
HillClimbers can provide, to set an overall MRA budget that
actually reflects the actual, you know, needs of Members and
the market demands. Then in October, CHA can set those
individual MRAs, and when they do that, they will line up with
the number that was set in February if we do this correctly.
I proved in 2023 that it is possible to use math, science,
and data to build extremely accurate MRA budgets and not have
to reverse-engineer them from a number.
Second, we need to improve the SOD data set.
One of the first things we have to do--and Daniel Schuman
agrees with me on this, as well--is to add unique identifiers
to the data set. We need to have a number that we can use to
track people when they get married and change their last names
or in the data set there are mistakes with the names. We need
to be able to know who that person is.
Second, we need to also have a field that tells us whether
they are permanent or nonpermanent staff so that we can figure
out, according to the 18/4 framework, whether Member offices
are staffed to their potential or not.
Staff salaries are essential for recruiting and retaining
talented professionals. And thank you for your time. I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Valadao. I appreciate that, Mr. Awan.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
NATIONAL LIBRARY SERVICE FOR THE BLIND AND PRINT DISABLED (NLS) TALKING
BOOK SERVICE
WITNESS
JESSE SHIREK, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS SPECIALIST, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE
BLIND
Mr. Valadao. And now I recognize Mr. Shirek for his 3
minutes.
STATEMENT OF JESSE SHIREK
Mr. Shirek. Hi. My name is Jesse Shirek. I am a government
affairs specialist with the National Federation of the Blind.
I am here to talk to you today about the National Library
Service for the Blind and Print Disabled Talking Book Service.
We are asking you, as a membership, to continue funding the
National Library Service Talking Book Service.
It is a critical service needed by blind people across the
country. There are some 8.3 million, estimated, blind and low-
vision people across the country of all ages, and it is a
critical service. And I will describe briefly why it is a
critical service.
I was born blind, and as a young person I became a talking-
book patron at 7 years old. So I have been a talking-book
patron for 39 years. Until that point, I always had to have
somebody read to me, a family member or a friend, and wasn't
able to read on my own. But when I received Talking Book
Service, I was able to use the audio books and the Braille
books, and it made a tremendous difference in my educational
career and my professional development. And it is a service
that I still rely on heavily to this day.
It is an extremely valuable service--I don't want to just
tell you about my personal experience, but prior to working for
the National Federation of the Blind, I was a blind skills
instructor, so I taught adults who were losing eyesight. And
one of the things they would often say to me is, ``I can't read
anymore. You know, I used to love to read. This isn't something
I can take part in anymore.'' And I would demonstrate a
talking-book player or a Braille e-reader and show them how to
use the technology, and all of a sudden they were able to read.
It is a transformative moment in their life.
And it helps blind people to be successful in school, be
successful in their jobs, and be successful--for our older
adults who are retired, it helps them to, you know, enjoy those
golden years and gives so much hope back to people.
So, on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, on
behalf of the 8.3 million blind and low-vision Americans, we
ask you to continue supporting the National Library Service and
keep funding it at its current level.
Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, sir.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
HOUSE MODERNIZATION INITIATIVES ACCOUNT
WITNESS
JOHN D. RACKEY, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, STRUCTURAL DEMOCRACY PROJECT,
BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER
Mr. Valadao. I now recognize Mr. Rackey for his 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOHN D. RACKEY
Mr. Rackey. Thank you, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide testimony today in support of fiscal
year 2026 and your ongoing support of efforts to build capacity
in the legislative branch.
My name is J.D. Rackey. I am a senior policy analyst with
the Structural Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy
Center. And, relevant to today, I have also previously had the
privilege of serving as professional staff with the House
Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.
As both a political scientist and someone with experience
as a staffer, I can confidently say that I know Congress can
best execute its Article I responsibilities only when it
adequately invests in its own capacity.
The American people rightly demand efficiency and
effectiveness from their government. However, it is important
to remember that efficiency can be gained both from reducing
spending and through strategic investment.
That is why I am requesting that funding for the House
Modernization Initiatives Account be appropriated at the $10
million level, which is a return to the level allocated in
fiscal year 2024 and the version of fiscal year 2025 that was
approved by this subcommittee prior to the CR.
I also request the inclusion of report language that would
create reporting requirements for entities receiving funds from
the account.
We know that MIA has a track record of success, helping
launch programs such as Deconflict in House CAO, CaseCompass,
and a comprehensive legislative drafting study, among many
others.
While knowledge of the good work funded by this account
exists among Members and staff and close observers of the
institution, the public accounting of this fund is kind of
scattered across a handful of reports and testimony before this
subcommittee and the Committee on House Administration. To my
knowledge, there is no one location that details which projects
have benefited from MIA funds or the current status of those
projects.
Requiring the generation of more standardized reporting
requirements for MIA funds will help increase accountability
and inform future modernizers about successful approaches used
by current modernization efforts.
On a related note, additional BPC testimony submitted by
former Senators Heitkamp and Martinez makes clear that Congress
must do more to respond to the Supreme Court's Loper Bright
decision and the ending of Chevron deference. MIA funds can
help get the ball rolling by funding improvements to the
FlagTrack program, development of a tour tracking program, and,
in particular, the expansion of the newly developed committee
portal.
Again, thank you for your work on these important issues
and for the opportunity to provide public testimony, and I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Rackey.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
IMPROVING CONGRESS'S ACCESS TO AGENCY REPORTS
WITNESS
DANIEL SCHUMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN GOVERNANCE INSTITUTE
Mr. Valadao. And I now recognize Mr. Schuman for his 3
minutes.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL SCHUMAN
Mr. Schuman. Thank you, Chair Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, Representative Moore. It is good to be testifying
before you, and thank you so much for having the public come in
and testify before this committee. I am excited to be here, and
I appreciate the opportunity.
My name is Daniel Schuman, and I am the executive director
of the American Governance Institute. And today I want to talk
about improving congressional access to reports from Federal
agencies.
Over the years, Congress has directed Federal agencies to
provide thousands of reports to Congress, but it is not always
possible to find these reports.
To keep track, for 203 years, the House has asked the Clerk
to maintain a list.
I brought a prop. I hope you don't mind.
This is the list of the reports that are due to Congress
each year. This is a list of the reports that are due to the
House and to the Senate. It is 412 pages long. I did not count
how many reports are actually in here, but there is a bunch.
And a couple years ago, the Congress passed legislation for
all the reports that the agencies are submitting to be made
available to GPO. So GPO is maintaining an archive of them all.
This all sounds good and fine, right?
The problem is that this voluminous list only includes the
reports that are due to the House and due to the Senate, but
not the reports that are due to the committees and the
subcommittees.
And the agencies are not providing all the reports to
Congress that they are supposed to provide. We don't know which
ones are missing, because we don't have a list of all of them.
I spoke with the Clerk's Office. The Clerk's Office would
be more than happy to update this list to include reports that
are due to the House and the Senate as well as its committees
and subcommittees, but they have a resource problem. They can't
afford to generate the list that is to include those due to
committees and subcommittees. They said that they would need
two additional executive communication clerks--that is about
$350,000--to go and make sure that you have a list of what is
due to the committees and subcommittees as well as to the House
and to the Senate.
Because right now on GPO's website, despite this gigantic
document, there are only 716 reports posted there, so
presumably there is a bunch missing. If GPO can check the list
of what they receive against the list that is required, then
you can go and follow up with the agencies to find out the ones
that are missing and make sure that they are providing it.
You could either pay two people to go and comb through all
the laws and find this stuff or maybe technology can help do
this.
Last year, you all directed the Clerk to make
recommendations to you about how to solve this problem.
My request this year is to go ahead and direct the Clerk
now to solve the problem. Appropriate $350,000--fortunately,
this is not that much in comparison to, say, what the Capitol
Police were asking for just the other day--$350,000 to either
update this list or to build an AI tool or some other tool to
track it.
This would make it easier for you all to do oversight over
the agencies. It would make it easier for the public to find
this information. And it would solve a problem that Congress
has been trying to solve since 1822, which is to find all the
reports that are due to Congress, so you can actually read the
reports, figure out which ones are unnecessary and get rid of
those, and make better decisions about the things that you are
trying to do.
This committee has long been supportive of improving and
making the legislative branch more capable. This is another
small step in that direction.
So thank you. I appreciate it.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Schuman.
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Mr. Valadao. I would like to see if any of my colleagues
would like to be recognized to ask a question of the first
panel.
All right. Well, I would like to thank the panel for your
time today and for your comments, and you guys are excused.
----------
Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
INCREASING THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE'S RETURN ON INVESTMENT
WITNESS
DAN LIPS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN INNOVATION
Mr. Valadao. And we will start with the second panel.
All right. Well, I appreciate you guys all appearing here
today.
And I would like to recognize Mr. Lips to provide his 3-
minute summary of his testimony.
STATEMENT OF DAN LIPS
Mr. Lips. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
Representative Moore, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
My name is Dan Lips, and I am a senior fellow with the
Foundation for American Innovation.
I respectfully request the subcommittee include report
language aimed at increasing the Government Accountability
Office's return on investment and impact.
As you heard from the Comptroller General this morning, GAO
has an impressive track record, delivering a return of $123 for
every dollar provided by Congress over the past 6 years. All
Americans should be grateful for the hard work of Congress's
watchdog agency.
But the subcommittee should ask, how can Congress further
increase GAO's return on investment? Over the past 3 years,
GAO's ROI has averaged just 78 to 1, well below that 6-year
average.
Today, more than 5,200 GAO recommendations remain open, and
last year GAO reported that agencies had failed to implement 30
percent of recommendations made 4 years ago. Congress could
save hundreds of billions of dollars by enacting GAO's
nonpartisan recommendations in a timely manner.
This subcommittee has already taken important steps,
including requiring quarterly reports on improper payments,
public estimates of potential savings associated with open
recommendations, and directing GAO to attach deadlines or
timeframes to new recommendations, all to increase ROI.
Each of these steps is valuable, and I encourage you to
continue requiring these reports in fiscal year 2026.
In addition, I respectfully recommend two new reporting
requirements.
First, require the Congressional Budget Office to issue a
report estimating the potential budgetary effects of
implementing open GAO recommendations. Former CBO Director
Keith Hall has explained that such a report would provide,
quote, ``a useful measure of preventable waste,'' helping
Congress increase pressure on agencies and improving GAO's ROI.
Second, direct GAO to use artificial intelligence to review
Federal regulations and identify outdated language.
Last year, Congress enacted a bipartisan law, the GAO
Database Modernization Act, which requires GAO to track
outdated rules that are identified and eliminated by Federal
agencies. Now Congress can increase GAO's role in conducting
regulatory oversight, including by leveraging technology.
The State of Ohio successfully used AI, combined with human
oversight, to streamline its code, eliminating nearly 5 million
words or one-third of its regulatory text. GAO could provide
nonpartisan analysis to inform a similar regulatory cleanup
effort for the Federal Government.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Lips.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
STRENGTHENING THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH BY IMPROVING ITS TOOLS FOR
CONDUCTING BIPARTISAN OVERSIGHT
WITNESS
JAMES TOWNSEND, DIRECTOR, CARL LEVIN CENTER FOR OVERSIGHT AND
DEMOCRACY, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Valadao. And now I recognize Mr. Townsend for his 3
minutes.
STATEMENT OF JAMES TOWNSEND
Mr. Townsend. Thank you, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and Vice Chair Moore.
I am Jim Townsend, and I am director of the Carl Levin
Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University
Law School. And I really want to express my appreciation for
the opportunity to testify to you today about how we can
strengthen the first branch of government through improving its
tools for conducting oversight--bipartisan oversight in
particular.
So I am going to mention three items that are in a letter
that I sent to you along with my colleague at the Project on
Government Oversight. There were nine items in that, but, in
the interest of time, I am going to focus on three items that
we think are particularly important for strengthening
oversight. Those three items are: bipartisan websites,
bipartisan reports, and hiring administrative staff on a
bipartisan basis.
So, before I get to those, I just want to say a word about
the Levin Center. We are an institute founded by Senator Carl
Levin upon his retirement from the U.S. Senate back about 10
years ago now, in 2015. Senator Levin was known for his
bipartisan work, his alliances he built across the aisle, to do
oversight, to really get into the specifics and to dig into the
problems that are facing the American people.
Our, sort of, guiding light and principle is that, when you
are conducting the oversight, you are acting as the eyes and
voice of the American people. And those words, ``eyes and
voice,'' don't come from us; they come from the Supreme Court
in a seminal ruling over 70 years ago on the power of Congress
to subpoena information.
So, in that spirit, I just want to mention these three
priorities.
The first one is bipartisan websites.
Websites right now in the Senate are formed on a bipartisan
basis, but, in the House, oftentimes we have Democratic
websites and Republican websites. And this is a problem on
several fronts.
First, it is a waste of resources. Having duplicate
websites is obviously twice what, you know--you are incurring
more costs than you need to.
Secondly, it really encourages partisanship in fact-
finding. And that is really the opposite of what you are
charged with doing in being the eyes and voice of the people.
Really good oversight and fact-finding work is done on a
bipartisan basis, because you get a greater breadth of
information, you get viewpoints coming from different sides,
all in pursuit of the facts and trying to reach some consensus
on how to move forward.
So the other problem with having separate, partisan
websites is, a lot of times, documents created by the committee
are lost when partisan control flips in the chamber.
The last two items I want to mention, though, are
bipartisan reports--which, again, same problem. When you are
issuing minority and majority reports, it is much more
difficult for the public to understand actually where you
stand, because they have to read two different reports to get
that information.
And, finally, administrative staff. The functions of
administrative personnel are really not partisan in nature. You
know, issuing subpoenas, dealing with all the paperwork that
has to be done to conduct oversight, to log the information
that is gathered--all of this is not really a partisan concern.
And so we really think it would be a much better practice and,
again, a much more cost-effective practice if this could be
conducted on a bipartisan basis and administrative personnel
were bipartisan.
So, again, thank you for this opportunity, and I look
forward to any of your questions.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Townsend.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY OF HOUSE OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL OPINIONS
WITNESS
MICHAEL STERN, FORMER SENIOR COUNSEL, HOUSE OFFICE OF
GENERAL COUNSEL
Mr. Valadao. I now recognize Mr. Stern for his 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL STERN
Mr. Stern. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, Mr. Vice
Chairman, thank you very much for this opportunity to testify.
My name is Mike Stern. I have had several roles on the
Hill, but, most relevant to my current testimony, I spent 8
years in the House General Counsel's Office, from 1996 to 2004.
Today I would like to talk to you about the need for some
greater transparency in the House's legal functions,
specifically the public-facing website of the House General
Counsel.
Today, the General Counsel's Office has a public website
with some very basic information about its functions and some
filings from the last 2 years. That is about it that it has.
Moreover, it reports to the Bipartisan Legal Advisory
Group, which is responsible for advising the Speaker with
regard to the functioning of the House Counsel's Office and for
articulating the institutional position of the House in
litigation, but BLAG, as it is known, has no website, and there
is virtually no information at all about it in any official
House source.
This lack of transparency is concerning, because it is in
the House's institutional interest for the public to have more
information about its legal positions and how they are
formulated.
Today, a member of the public or a legal scholar would find
it very difficult to find what the House's position is on
important legal controversies. In contrast, the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel has a website with
hundreds of opinions on executive power, all of which are
wrong--no, that is a joke. But it does create a great imbalance
between the branches in terms of things like oversight and
separation-of-powers issues.
So I will give you one recent example of an OLC opinion
which threatens congressional oversight prerogatives.
Last year, the OLC issued an opinion finding that a
subpoena from the House Foreign Relations Committee to
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was invalid because, well,
Secretary Blinken apparently had something on his schedule that
conflicted with the date that the committee wanted him to
testify.
The idea that congressional subpoenas are invalid just
because the executive branch thinks it has something better to
do is a novel and dangerous idea. In fact, no less an authority
than Paul Colborn, a longstanding veteran, recently retired, of
OLC, has publicly expressed concerns about the threat this
opinion poses to congressional oversight.
Now, I know there is not a lot we can do to solve this
problem today, but we can take a small step in that direction
by improving the House General Counsel's public-facing website.
And the place to start would be to take the information that is
behind the ``For Congressional Offices'' tab that is not
available to the public, and I believe there is a lot of
information there that would be able to be moved to the public
side without violating any confidentiality.
So I will stop there and answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Stern.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
CASEWORK SUPPORT, REMOTE VOTING CAPABILITY, AND AI TRAINING
WITNESS
DANIELLE STEWART, ADVISOR FOR CONGRESSIONAL INITIATIVES, POPVOX
FOUNDATION
Mr. Valadao. I now recognize Ms. Stewart for her 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DANIELLE STEWART
Ms. Stewart. Chair Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and
Vice Chair Moore, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today.
I am Danielle Stewart, a former House chief of staff and
modernization staffer now serving with the bipartisan POPVOX
Foundation. Our team of former legislative-branch staffers and
public servants works to strengthen congressional capacity
while ensuring the responsible use of taxpayer funds.
Today, I would like to highlight three priority items for
the committee's consideration.
First, we recommend a feasibility study within the CAO to
establish a House Casework Support Office.
Congressional offices are facing unprecedented surges in
constituent requests for help with Federal agencies, some
seeing double- or triple-digit increases. Through our Casework
Navigator Program, which provides training, resource-sharing,
and a regular newsletter to support caseworkers, we have heard
firsthand how this increase is straining staff and office
resources.
A centralized office could collect and share up-to-date
agency contacts and best practices, serve as a clearinghouse
for policy changes, provide referrals to existing CAO services,
and build tools to identify systemic agency issues. This would
be a natural extension of successful staff development
initiatives like the CAO's Coach program and the House HR Hub.
A feasibility study would be a logical next step.
Second, our team supports further exploration of remote-
voting technology in the House. This effort is not about
excusing absences. It is about ensuring continuity of
operations during emergencies or when in-person gatherings
become impossible.
Other major legislatures, including Canada and the U.K.,
have implemented secure remote-voting options for their
members. As national-security threats evolve, Congress must
maintain its ability to vote and exercise its Article I
responsibilities even if Members cannot physically convene in
the Capitol.
Finally, we recommend in-house development of AI training
resources for Members and staff. With network traffic data
suggesting that a quarter of House staff regularly use AI,
there is an urgent need for institutional guidance.
An optional in-house curriculum through the Congressional
Staff Academy could provide courses on ethical AI usage, ensure
all offices have access to practical guidance, and offer
sandbox sessions for safe experimentation with these tools.
In recent years, the House has made important strides in
modernization and staff support. These three initiatives--
casework support, remote voting capability, and AI training--
would further enhance congressional operations and
responsiveness to constituents and keep the legislative branch
competitive in a rapidly evolving society.
Thank you for your consideration. The POPVOX Foundation
stands ready to provide any additional information or support.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Stewart.
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Mr. Valadao. I will see if any of my colleagues here have
any questions for this panel.
Well, you are excused, and thank you for your time today.
----------
Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A HOUSE CHIEF DATA OFFICER
WITNESS
NICHOLAS HART, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DATA FOUNDATION
Mr. Valadao. I would like to ask the third panel to come
up.
Mr. Hart, I now recognize you for your 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS HART
Mr. Hart. Thank you to the subcommittee for the opportunity
to testify today. And thank you also to the staff for
coordinating with all of the witnesses. I very much appreciate
the opportunity to be with you.
I am Nick Hart, president and CEO of the Data Foundation.
We are a national nonprofit that advocates for open data and
evidence-informed policy and decision-making.
I am here today representing our community, which includes
our data coalition members and many, many partners who support
responsible data access, effective data governance, and
meaningful data transparency across the whole of government,
including the legislative branch. And I want to recognize also
that many of the witnesses today have also acknowledged these
issues in their commentary.
I urge Congress strongly to create and establish a Chief
Data Officer function within the legislative branch as part of
the current appropriations process.
Back in 2018, Congress passed legislation requiring
executive-branch agencies to do so as part of the Open
Government Data Act, and that was signed by President Trump at
the time. Congress should apply these same principles here in
the legislative branch under Article I.
It is a low-cost mechanism that helps ensure Congress has
the information it needs to effectively and efficiently
legislate. And it is a way of focusing on the data on the
systems, not just the systems themselves.
It is not about creating more bureaucracy or not even a way
of criticizing the excellent expertise of the congressional
staff today, but a way to ensure that Congress has access and
availability to information that it needs and can coordinate
across the entirety of the congressional enterprise when it
comes to data.
The current lack of this enterprise-wide data governance
strategy creates some real problems, and I think some of those
have even been acknowledged today so far.
When developing legislation, congressional offices
repeatedly request the same information and analyses, creating
some duplication, even some delays.
During the appropriations process, offices may struggle to
analyze the immense volume of data, including performance
information provided by agencies to the legislative branch. And
other offices may not even be aware of some of that performance
information that comes in about outputs, efficiency measures,
and eventually the outcomes.
A congressional CDO can help coordinate this existing data
function without replacing a lot of the great work that is
already happening.
Highlighting a couple of the key benefits that we see:
developing a data catalog, a way of knowing what data exists
across the institution of Congress; establishing protocols for
appropriate and responsible effective executive-legislative
data-sharing while respecting constitutional principles;
enabling new privacy-preserving technologies that are becoming
very common in many parts of government today to help us
protect sensitive information; supporting implementation of new
laws from the last Congress like the CBO Data Sharing Act; and
even creating machine-readable formats.
We think this is a modest investment that leads to some
substantial returns that are not just symbolic, not just
cultural, but lead to action. Our research shows that quality
data systems pay for themselves through improved services and
reduced waste.
We strongly encourage Congress to establish an enterprise-
wide Chief Data Officer. And thank you for your consideration.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Hart.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF NON-CONFIDENTIAL CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
REPORTS
WITNESS
ANTOINE McGRATH, CREATOR, CRSREPORTS.COM
Mr. Valadao. Now I recognize Mr. McGrath for his 3 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANTOINE McGRATH
Mr. McGrath. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat,
and Vice Chairman Moore, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today.
My name is Antoine McGrath, and I am the creator of
CRSReports.com, a public website which I built and maintain,
starting in 2015 with help from like-minded friends, with the
sole purpose of making Congressional Research Service reports
more accessible to the public.
We had no institutional support or outside funding, just a
shared belief that these taxpayer-funded materials should be
freely available to the people who paid for them.
CRSReports.com made reports available to the public before
any official site existed. Our work was later subsumed by
EveryCRSReport.com, run by Daniel Schuman, and the support of
Demand Progress. Together, we showed that publishing CRS
reports at scale could be done quickly and efficiently.
Since then, Congress has passed the Equal Access to
Congressional Research Service Reports Act, which requires
public access to non-confidential CRS reports and funding for
that effort.
The public portal to CRS reports hosted by Congress has
done well and has informed the public of complex issues before
Congress, but their work is not done. CRS has not released
historical reports, tens of thousands of them, which remain
locked away in the internal system known as CRSX. As a result,
unofficial repositories, such as the ones that I created, serve
more reports than CRS does itself.
Congress can use its authority to again direct CRS and the
Library of Congress this time to work with GPO to release CRS
reports to the public, with specific note that this includes
historical unclassified reports. Public access to these in PDF
format would suffice. This effort has been approved and funded
by Congress.
Providing clarity around historical CRS reports is a high-
impact step that fulfills the spirit of the law and benefits
Congress, researchers, and the public. I respectfully urge the
subcommittee to act.
Thank you again for your time.
Mr. Valadao. We appreciate your comments, Mr. McGrath.
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Mr. Valadao. Any questions from my colleagues up here?
Well, you guys are excused. Thank you very much for your
time.
All right. If there are no further questions, I would like
to thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
Members may submit additional questions for the record.
Mr. Valadao. And the committee now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
----------
Tuesday, April 29, 2025.
JOHN C. STENNIS CENTER FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT,
OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL WORKPLACE RIGHTS, AND CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE FOR
INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP
WITNESSES
DR. BRIAN PUGH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JOHN C. STENNIS CENTER FOR PUBLIC
SERVICE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
MR. MARTIN CRANE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL WORKPLACE
RIGHTS
MS. JANE SARGUS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE FOR
INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Mr. Valadao. The subcommittee will come to order.
The subject of today's hearing is the fiscal year 2026
request for the Stennis Center for Public Service Training and
Development, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, and
the Congressional Office for International Leadership.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat, the
committee members, and our agency executive directors for being
here this morning.
While our smaller agencies do not traditionally testify
every budget cycle, we wanted to invite you back to provide an
introduction to the work you do and the work you and your teams
do for the new members of our subcommittee.
The Stennis Center for Public Service Training and
Development, while being the oldest of the three agencies here
today, continues to submit a flat funding request for $430,000
for fiscal year 2026. The Office of Congressional Workplace
Rights requests $8.6 million, an increase of nearly 5.5
percent. And, finally, the Congressional Office for
International Leadership's fiscal year 2026 request is $7.2
million, a 20 percent increase.
I look forward to your testimony.
And I now yield to Ranking Member Espaillat, Mr. Espaillat,
for his opening remarks.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Chairman Valadao.
Ms. Sargus, Dr. Pugh, and Mr. Crane, thank you all for
testifying today on behalf of your respective agencies.
Your agencies continue to play a vital role in advancing
workplace rights and providing future leaders with the tools
that are required, really, to develop and support democracy
across the world.
As the first Dominican American to serve in Congress, I
understand and continue to be encouraged by the international
outreach of COIL to share accountable governance and
citizenship diplomacy. Now, more than ever, I believe that it
is vital to maintain our connection with global partners to
exchange best practices.
As General Mattis once told the current President, if we
don't spend money on countries across the world, we are going
to need to buy more bullets. And so we don't want to buy more
bullets. We want to make sure that we encourage democracy
across the world.
And the Stennis Center also has been instrumental in
connecting new generations to the public service workplace.
So thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to
your testimony.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Dr. Pugh, your full testimony has been submitted for the
record, and you are now recognized to provide a summary of your
written testimony.
STATEMENT OF DR. BRIAN PUGH
Mr. Pugh. Good morning, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and members of the subcommittee. I am Brian Pugh,
the executive director of the Stennis Center for Public Service
Training and Development, and I am honored to speak to you
today about the Stennis Center's $430,000 appropriations
request that funds our congressional program.
The Stennis Center was established in 1988 with the
statutory mission to, one, promote public service to young
people and to get them interested in a career in public
service; two, to provide training and professional development
opportunities to State and local elected officials and their
staff; and, three, to provide training and professional
development opportunities to congressional staff.
We are overseen by a board of trustees that are required by
law to be appointed by House and Senate leadership.
Our programs that meet the third prong of our mission are
known as our Congressional Programs. Because the Stennis
Center's request is for expenses related to these programs, I
will focus on discussing those.
The Congressional Programs consist of the following: the
Stennis Congressional Staff Fellows Program, Emerging Leaders
Program, and the Stennis Program for Congressional Interns.
The Stennis Center is requesting level funding, which is
$430,000. The Stennis Center strives to present the highest
quality programs for congressional staff at the lowest possible
cost.
The Center has been operating on the same funding level for
multiple years now. The appropriations request for fiscal year
2026 is essential to enable the Stennis Center to continue to
provide training and development opportunities to congressional
staff as mandated by its authorizing legislation. Without the
appropriation, the highly successful Congressional Programs
will be severely reduced, if not eliminated.
As I noted, the Stennis Center is requesting level funding.
The Stennis Center has been able to keep level funding despite
increased costs because of two main strategies.
The first strategy has been to consistently evaluate ways
that we can save money without substantially impacting the
quality of the programs. The money saved can then be used in
other ways that improve our programs or offset rising costs.
One of my proudest cost-saving measures has been our recent
move to the Library of Congress.
At the beginning of the 2025 fiscal year, the Stennis
Center moved from a leased space in a private office building
to the Adams Building at the Library of Congress.
If you factor in the savings from services such as
utilities and parking, the total yearly saving is almost
$50,000, which is equivalent to 11.5 percent of our budget
request.
However, this is not the only benefit to moving to the
Library. Because it is so much larger than the Stennis Center,
the Library can potentially provide us with services that would
otherwise cost us more if we were to contract out on an ad hoc
basis. These conversations are currently ongoing.
While our move to the Library is the most noteworthy
example of cost savings, I would like to provide a couple
examples of how we have adjusted our programs to save costs
while maintaining their high quality.
One example is the cost of food and refreshments for the
Stennis Intern Program. While I am a big believer in southern
hospitality and always having food for your guests, we decided
in 2022 to cut back on food that we provided to the program.
This allowed us to go from hosting the Stennis Intern
Program once a year to three times a year. Because we utilized
event space in the Capitol Visitor Center for this program, we
were ultimately able to increase the number of participants
threefold at no additional cost.
Similarly, we were able to cut the costs of event space for
the Stennis Fellows Program by moving our roundtables to the
Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, which is considerably
cheaper than other D.C. options. The cost savings allowed us to
expand the number of roundtables from four to six.
The second strategy that the Stennis Center has employed to
limit programmatic costs is that we have created a system where
our programs can build upon themselves without adding cost to
the Stennis Center.
What this means in practice is that once someone has gone
through our programs, they are much more likely to volunteer
their time to give back to us and to the institution of
Congress.
While this is difficult to quantify into an actual dollar
amount, it does mean that we can have expert panelists,
speakers, and seasoned veterans to mentor young staff and even
interns serving on the editorial board of Public Service
Review, our journal.
Finally, I would like to close by briefly bragging about
the Congressional Program.
Despite the level funding, interest in our program
continues to increase. Over the course of the 118th Congress,
we had 248 individual participants complete their respective
programming.
Further, the number of applications to our program has
increased significantly. As an example, the number of
applicants for the 119th Stennis Fellows Program was 122. This
is a 27 percent increase from the number of applications in the
118th Congress, almost a 200 percent increase from the 10-year
average.
We believe that these kinds of statistics show that
congressional staff value our programs.
Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today about the
Stennis Center's appropriation request. I look forward to any
questions you may have.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Pugh.
And I now recognize Mr. Crane for his 5 minutes for a
summary of his testimony.
STATEMENT OF MR. MARTIN CRANE
Mr. Crane. Good morning, Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member
Espaillat, and distinguished committee members. Thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the Office of
Congressional Workplace Rights to discuss our budget
justification for fiscal year 2026.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the landmark
Congressional Accountability Act, which the 104th Congress
enacted with virtually unanimous support in 1995.
In so doing, Congress promised the American public that it
would no longer exempt itself from the workplace safety,
accessibility, and veterans' preference laws that it applies to
the private sector and the executive branch.
To paraphrase a sponsor of the new law, enactment of the
Congressional Accountability Act ended once and for all the era
of ``it applies to thee but not to me.''
Since then, the CAA has served as a model of good
government and accountability to the American taxpayer.
Congress ensures that its promise of accountability is matched
by action through our office, the independent, nonpartisan
Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.
In carrying out our mission under the CAA we strive to
serve as a steward for government efficiency. With only 34
FTEs, we are one of the smallest offices with a line item in
the Federal budget.
Yet the broad range of nearly 20 antidiscrimination,
safety, accessibility, and veterans' preference laws that we
administer in the legislative branch is comparable in scope to
that of multiple executive branch agencies, such as the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Labor Relations
Authority, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,
and multiple components of the Departments of Labor and
Justice.
The OCWR has executed its mission on an operating budget
that is a fraction of that of the smallest of these executive
branch agencies. For fiscal year 2026, the OCWR requests
funding of $8.6 million, or 5 percent over the continuing
resolution amount for fiscal year 2025.
Our request focuses on efficiency and considers only
strictly mission-critical line items. It does not propose any
new programs, but it would allow the OCWR to perform its
continuing statutory mandate at the same levels as it has in
past years.
This mandate is embodied in the Congressional
Accountability Act itself.
As required by the CAA, we develop and provide outreach,
education, and training to the congressional community on the
laws applied through the CAA.
We provide confidential advising services for legislative
branch employees on CAA rights and responsibilities.
We operate an administrative dispute resolution program,
which includes administrative hearings and voluntary mediation.
Our Office of General Counsel enforces laws governing
safety, accessibility, labor relations, and it also inspects
more than 18 million square feet of facilities and grounds in
the legislative branch to ensure that they are and remain safe
and accessible.
Our board of directors reports to each Congress with
recommendations on maintaining parity between the laws that
apply to the private sector and the executive branch and those
that apply to the legislative branch.
We also administer a biennial survey to more than 30,000
legislative branch employees which assesses the congressional
workplace environment and the effectiveness of reforms.
More than 80 percent of our budget request is for personnel
costs associated with 34 authorized FTEs, including projected
COLA adjustments.
We depend on our ability to recruit and retain highly
skilled personnel, such as safety inspectors and IT records and
legal professionals.
Our budget request for fiscal year 2026 will allow us to
maintain competitive compensation levels.
Although we are projecting an increase in personnel costs,
our enhanced ability to perform more services in-house that
were previously provided by outside contractors and service
providers has resulted in a significant decrease in non-
personnel costs. We expect this trend to continue.
Our fiscal year 2026 budget request will allow the OCWR to
succeed while serving as a responsible and efficient steward of
taxpayers' money.
I therefore ask that you support it and our continued work
in executing our crucial mission under the Congressional
Accountability Act in the coming fiscal year.
Again, thank you for your ongoing and steadfast support.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Crane.
And I now recognize Ms. Sargus for her 5-minute summary of
her testimony.
STATEMENT OF MS. JANE SARGUS
Ms. Sargus. Chairman Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of the Congressional
Office for International Leadership, or COIL for short.
For 25 years, COIL has been offering a proven platform for
congressional diplomacy, linking future foreign leaders with
you and the communities that you represent. It is a legislative
branch tool created by this body to advance American leadership
in a uniquely nonpartisan way.
I am honored to be speaking directly to you today to report
that COIL and its Open World Program does, in fact, promote
national security, strategic congressional diplomacy, and
nonpartisan values.
We respectfully request a $1.2 million increase to our
appropriation for fiscal year 2026, bringing our total to $7.2
million.
We have operated at or below $6 million for the last 12
budget cycles, despite a decade of expanded programming and
rising costs.
Cost-sharing efforts with local host organizations have
reached their maximum. Yet, meanwhile, demand from local
American hosts themselves continues to exceed our capacity, as
we had to turn away nearly 40 percent of eligible communities
this year due to budgetary constraints.
So today I am not just asking for a 20 percent increase in
our budget. I am asking you to invest in a program that
delivers high-value, low-cost, and real results for Congress
and for America.
What would the 20 percent accomplish? We could strengthen
our parliamentary exchanges for one thing, and we could deepen
engagement in underrepresented American communities for
another.
By bringing global leadership into direct contact with over
2,000 American communities, you are supporting local economies
while creating international understanding through home stay
and grassroots engagement.
The program impacts American communities when delegates
travel to our cities, staying with host families, engaging with
local institutions, and exchanging professional expertise.
For every dollar invested, we return value in the form of
good will, local engagement, and strategic influence. Our
operating model uses local hosts, volunteers, and existing
civic institutions, making us lean, effective, and bipartisan.
But growth has reached the limits of what is possible at
our current funding level. We operate a lean and highly
effective agency that leverages partnerships with organizations
so that we can minimize overhead and maximize reach.
Cost pressures continue to rise. Since 2019, cost-of-living
adjustments for salaries are nearing 20 percent, benefit rates
have risen by more than 7 percent, and per delegate costs alone
have doubled.
Grants needed to execute a high-level program now include
higher costs for van rentals, drivers, gas, food, and
contracted labor. Airfare alone from the Indo-Pacific can be up
to 30 percent higher than from Europe.
By working in new strategic regions, though, we also lose
the economies of scale that once made it possible to stretch $6
million across a limited number of countries.
Every budget request before you is framed as essential. I
understand that. But let me tell you why this increase is not
just warranted, it is smart, it is timely, and directly aligned
with the strategic goals of this Congress. It is a cost-
effective, locally rooted, fiscally conservative, and
internationally impactful program that many in Congress are
also very proud of.
At home, civic clubs, universities, and local governments
across the country host Open World delegations because they
believe in a mission that supports Congress. Nearly all of our
funding is spent domestically, reinvested in local economies in
every State.
Do you want to promote American values abroad? We have been
doing that for 25 years quietly, effectively, and with the help
of ordinary Americans in every State. With your continued
support, we will keep bringing leaders who believe in democracy
because they have seen it right here and often for the first
time in your offices.
In closing, our mission is simple but powerful: to connect
you with the world one leader at a time. Members of this
subcommittee, COIL the agency is an asset, it is a resource,
and it is an investment. The Open World Program is your
program. It was created by you, for you, and our team is small,
our mission is focused, and our results are measurable.
We respectfully request your support for this $1.2 million
increase so that we can meet rising demand, support
congressional priorities, and sustain America's voice in the
world from one country to one community at a time.
Thank you for your time and for your continued support of
congressional diplomacy. I look forward to your questions. And
I would like to say thank you to my staff who are with me today
for their extraordinary support and outstanding service to
Congress.
Thank you.
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Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Ms. Sargus.
Thank you to our witnesses for testifying before the
committee today.
For questions, I will call on members based on the
seniority of those present when the hearing was called to
order, alternating between the majority and minority, then we
will call on members in order of their arrival. Each will have
5 minutes.
And I now recognize myself for those 5 minutes.
Dr. Pugh, I want to begin by commending you for your fiscal
responsibility and for the creative ways you have been
increasing services with such a modest appropriation.
Can you share with the committee the impact you feel that
this increase in programming will have on the legislative
branch?
Mr. Pugh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that our impact continues to be really important
and touch a lot of Members, especially the ones that have staff
that participate in our programs. It is not just the Stennis
Fellows Program, which is our flagship program, which is for
the senior-level staff, but we also continue to touch junior-
level staff as well through our Emerging Leaders Program and
our Stennis Program for Congressional Interns.
Yes, like my colleagues mentioned here, costs have gone up
significantly, but we have just continued to save without
touching the quality of the programs. We have done that in a
lot of unique ways. Again, one of the biggest moves to the--I
mean, the move we made was to the Library of Congress. So that
has really helped us quite a bit.
And we do have a lot of senior Stennis fellows who go
through the program that, once they complete the program, they
help us with the additional programs. So that has been a large
savings for us because staff cost is really expensive. But I am
fortunate enough to be able to keep a small staff because I do
depend heavily on the senior Stennis fellows that went through
the program. So that is the primary cost-saver for us.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Ms. Sargus, last year, when you testified before the
subcommittee and in several meetings since, we have discussed a
greater need for transparency and oversight within your agency
to ensure your program reflects the will of Congress.
What changes has your agency implemented over the past year
to ensure the appropriate oversight committees are aware of the
work you are doing and to ensure that your programs are
nonpartisan in nature?
Ms. Sargus. Thank you for that question.
To begin with, we are having quarterly meetings with one of
the committees that was very interested in the work that we do,
the Committee on House Administration. We also have regular
review periods with the clerks. We keep people apprised of what
is going on with our agency.
We are taking a fine-tooth comb to the character of our
programs, but actually we are ordering them at a top-down level
where it is more inclusive of Congress and the congressional
interests of this particular Congress.
We are very mindful of that. We don't find it such a
challenge because, generally, COIL's programs have served well
over time. And we keep in mind that there are certain things
that are more important than others, and we try to accomplish
that and accommodate that whenever we can.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you.
Mr. Crane, in your testimony you briefly mentioned your
responsibilities regarding training and education to the
congressional community.
Can you share with us a little more about the types of
training you offer and the increase in demand that you are
seeing?
Mr. Crane. Certainly.
We have a very extensive training, education, and outreach
program. Training and education is really at the heart of what
we do because we believe that an educated and trained workforce
is far less likely to be one where they are troubled by
unlawful discrimination or other unlawful employment practices.
The CAA requires that we maintain this program of training
and education. It is available nationwide, which is consistent
with the mandate in the statute that we offer services to the
district offices that are comparable to those available to
legislative branch employees on Capitol Hill.
Our program includes educational videos, video tutorials,
in-person training, newsletters, fast facts on occupational
safety and health matters, downloadable brochures.
Our Office of General Counsel conducts brown bags to assist
legal practitioners who have cases before our office.
We offer training on public access and offer assistance in
that department.
We also conduct labor management forums for practitioners
in that area and OSH presentations, most recently a safety
matters talk on internal workplace safety assessments.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Well, thank you.
My time has expired. I now recognize Ranking Member
Espaillat for his questions for 5 minutes.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crane, can you give us an update on the Workplace
Rights Center, what you have done to modernize and increase the
efficiency of services offered by your office, particularly
given the environment of cuts? What have you done to improve
the efficiency of services?
Mr. Crane. Certainly.
We have added several systems that increase our efficiency
not just on the Hill but in accordance with the CAA's mandate
that we provide the same levels of service nationwide.
As mandated by the Reform Act, we now have a secure online
platform for filing claims to adjudicate under the
Congressional Accountability Act.
We now have a secure video conferencing system so that we
can conduct virtual hearings in our ADR process, and we are
finding that, in the majority of cases, practitioners and
claimants prefer virtual hearings to in-person hearings, but
both options are available.
Our training and education modules can be delivered
virtually or in person. And we have also added the capacity to
conduct secret ballot union representation elections virtually.
So that provides employees the ability to vote regardless of
their location.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you.
Dr. Pugh, besides moving to the Library of Congress, how
have significant Federal workforce cuts impacted your
organization's ability to connect with young people and the
fellowships? I mean, is there a bottom line? Have you decreased
the fellowships? Have they increased? Are they the same? What
is the status of the service that--the number of young people
that you are servicing?
Mr. Pugh. So the young people it has not really affected
because the Congressional Interns Program is the only one that
will really deal specifically with young people, and we
continue to recruit the same amount of students.
Mr. Espaillat. What about the fellowships?
Mr. Pugh. So with the fellowships it is still--we don't
select a fellows class every year. It is every new Congress.
But it is still between 30 and 34. So we have continued the
same number.
That obviously contributes to the cost savings too, though,
because that number has not increased. It has been that way for
a number of years now. But, I mean, again, if Congress would
like that number to ever increase too, though, obviously more
funding would be required for that.
Mr. Espaillat. Okay. With COIL, right, I know that you are
asking for a 20 percent increase. How have the cuts across the
board in government in general impacted COIL's mission and
goals and objectives?
Ms. Sargus. Well, we haven't seen any immediate outcomes
from that, but I expect that grantees around the country are
going to get concerned that they are not going to be able to
apply for grants if we don't have the capacity to provide them
with one. And giving grants is the primary purpose of the
agency, which is to support civil society, rule of law,
accountable governance, and transparency.
So, so far COIL has managed to stay in close contact with
the large number of grantees that we work with, the small clubs
around the country, and they keep us apprised of situations
that require more attention from us, and we do our best to
answer their concerns about that.
Mr. Espaillat. Mr. Chairman, these are relatively, like,
three smaller agencies, and I think that they have a pretty
good hands-on approach to how they administer them. But I think
that overall, as these cuts begin to take place and hit the
ground, it is particularly the small agencies that could be hit
the hardest and devastated by the cuts because you have less to
work with.
And so I encourage us to continue to be watchful of your
operations and to ensure that they continue to move forward and
that they get the proper funding, including the increases that
are almost mandated every year because of the cost of living.
We know how everything has increased dramatically.
But thank you for the work that you do.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
Now I recognize Ms. Maloy for her 5 minutes.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate all of you being here to testify. I really
appreciate what each of you said about how careful you are
being with your budgets and stretching them, making them go
farther.
Dr. Pugh, my staff tells me you have a tactical advantage
in that one of the women sitting up here is a fellow, and I
don't remember April doing a fellowship, so I think it must be
Lori Rowley.
Which makes me want to ask you this question. Do you have,
can you tell us a success story of one of your fellows who has
come through your program and then helps us do a better job?
You can exempt Lori since she is up here and it will embarrass
her. Anybody else who has been successful? Since you are a
small agency, and I think a lot of people are unaware of what
you do.
Mr. Pugh. Okay. One success story that comes to mind is
with the 118th Stennis fellows class. We had one Democrat and
one Republican working together--because that is one of the
things that the program does--and they worked together to work
with their bosses to introduce legislation that was actually
passed. That is one of the highlights of the program, and that
doesn't happen that often, but it is remarkable when it does.
But for the members that are not as familiar with the
program, by law, everything we do, it has to be bipartisan. We
have Democrats and Republicans, we have House and Senate
members, members from personal office and committee staff. So
whenever we take them out, say, to a university or something
and they are engaging with students and all, too, though, they
really see Congress at its best because you guys know that you
have amazing employees. And the staffers on the Hill, they are
just truly amazing, they do remarkable work.
But that is the best story to me. And sometimes the
students can't even tell based on the questions, how they
respond to the question, who is in what party, and I think that
just speaks to the quality of staff that is attracted to the
Stennis Fellows Program.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
So just to be clear, the legislation they passed did make
people's lives better?
Mr. Pugh. Most definitely.
Ms. Maloy. Okay. Thanks.
Also, as a former staffer, I always appreciate it when
people brag on the staff. So thank you for that.
I have other questions, but I like the way that turned out.
Mr. Crane, I am going to give you the same chance. Can you
tell us anything that--a success story that you have that makes
what we do easier or makes life better for people on the Hill?
Mr. Crane. Certainly.
We have had successes in virtually every subprogram that we
operate on a day-to-day basis. Our training and education, we
have significantly updated our CAA training videos, which are
available on our website and which explain in plain English
what employee rights are under those various laws.
We have launched an in-house learning management system
that allows us to produce additional training and education
materials that are tailored to the needs of the legislative
branch.
Our Office of General Counsel worked with other
instrumentalities in the legislative branch on issues and
presented practitioners nine different presentations concerning
the laws under the CAA and also worked with the
instrumentalities to raise awareness of accessibility barriers
faced by individuals with disabilities, particularly during
security screenings at the entrances to the buildings.
Our board of directors submitted a report for consideration
by the 119th Congress concerning changes to the CAA that, if
enacted, would further the CAA's goal of maintaining parity
between the legislative branch and the executive branch and the
private sector.
Many more, but those are the highlights. Thank you.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you.
Ms. Sargus, I appreciated what you said about being careful
in making sure that you are nonpartisan in your mission. I have
got 40-something seconds left. Do you want to share a success
story that you have?
Ms. Sargus. Thank you for the question. It is a great
question.
COIL has had excellent experience with identifying who the
future leaders are that would be of interest and very good for
the program.
We began a program in Poland in the summer of 2022, and
after a 2-year period those delegates--there were some 50-plus
delegates, three of whom became members of parliament in their
next election.
So the fact that we can identify such a very, very high-
level cohort who has the ability to advance that quickly is a
point that we are very proud of.
We also----
Ms. Maloy. Sorry. I am out of time.
Ms. Sargus. Oh, sorry.
Ms. Maloy. Thank you. I don't want the chairman to think I
am irresponsible with my time like I was last time, so I am
going to yield back.
Ms. Sargus. Okay.
Mr. Valadao. I appreciate that, Ms. Maloy.
Now I recognize Mr. Moore for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you all being here.
Ms. Sargus, could I ask, so the makeup of this exchange
program, what is the largest share of foreign nationals on that
side that come over here? Is it a specific region of the world?
What is that?
Ms. Sargus. In the past couple of years it has been
Ukraine, followed by Georgia.
Mr. Moore. Is there a specific reason why it is Ukraine and
Georgia?
Ms. Sargus. No. However, a couple years ago we were
instructed to enhance or build up our Ukraine program. It had
been smaller. So the opportunity came up after 2022 when we
suspended our Russia program indefinitely. So we were able to
accommodate that enhancement. So that works well.
We also were able to partner with the VA, and it is
probably a flagship program of ours that the VA works with
veterans from Ukraine and provides programming for them in one
of the five polytrauma centers that the VA has in this country
where our medical specialists are getting the opportunity to
get very much the latest in battlefield injuries. And they are
learning a whole lot from Ukraine veterans who are able to come
over here.
And because of our relationship with Ukraine over the
years, and so many of our alumni, some 4,000 to 5,000 alumni,
many of them are members of parliament or even in the
ministries by now, we are able to get permission to bring those
people over here. It is very hard for Ukrainian soldiers to
come over, but we are able to bring them over for a 10-day
program. We also had women veterans from Ukraine who went to
West Virginia.
Mr. Moore. And I think you said this. So are these elected
officials when they are coming over here? Or, generally, they
are not, and then typically they will go on to become elected
officials?
Ms. Sargus. Most of them are not elected officials, but our
parliamentary program grows each year. So we look for the
elected official, and we work with the parliaments of these
countries, also parliamentary staff, which are a very
interesting cohort to bring over.
Mr. Moore. Okay. So most of them then not being MPs or
anything like that?
Ms. Sargus. Not when they start, but sometimes our
parliamentary program--well, our parliamentary program is for
MPs.
Ukraine's parliamentary numbers, we have actually reached
quite a few, but most of them are having a difficult time
coming and traveling on the 10-day program.
So we do our best bringing them over and getting them
congressional meetings and accessible to the institutions and
the officials they need to meet, but there are challenges with
that, of course.
Mr. Moore. Are there other European countries that
participate in this?
Ms. Sargus. Yes. We work with Romania. We work with
Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Balkans, the Baltic states.
Parliamentary members from most of those countries have come
over here.
Our newest program is in the Indo-Pacific where it is
interesting for us to be working with parliaments of the
countries of the Indo-Pacific. They are rather small. So one of
our delegations represents 10 percent of their parliament. So
we are able to make very deep inroads into that cohort in just
a few delegations.
Mr. Moore. And then are you familiar with the Transatlantic
Legislators' Dialogue that takes place?
The TLD has been around for a long time. Do you feel that
that might be duplicative since they are meeting twice a year,
folks from the European Parliament, and then there is the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly as well that has MPs from the NATO
nations meeting with our congressional delegation multiple
times a year? Does that seem a little bit duplicative?
Ms. Sargus. I don't have a very deep knowledge of the
programs you are talking about, but I believe the difference is
that COIL programs are essentially in the American community by
the end of it.
So they do spend 3 days here, the parliament members do
spend 3 days here in Washington, but the rest of their time is
in communities around the country. And that is where they work
with State legislatures, which are often more to scale for
their own countries. So they learn about lawmaking and policy.
And one of the things that we found that our
parliamentarians really want to know, they want to know why
they can't have a CVC. So we talk to them about that. We talk
to them about CRS. We talk about calendar. They don't have a
congressional calendar.
So they want to know how you run so they can work that into
their own processes. So we introduce them to speakers from CRS,
and we take them to the CVC, and they meet with committee
members. Committee membership is another thing that they find
very interesting.
So while they do really important work here in Washington
for 3 days, when they get to the State capitals they get a
different kind and a much more focused kind of program, one
that really tells them what they need to know.
Mr. Moore. Yeah. I would urge you to take a look at this.
So it is under Title 22. So it is over at--the Foreign Affairs
Committee administers these.
Ms. Sargus. Okay.
Mr. Moore. But NATO Parliamentary Assembly, they come here,
too. So they come here every year, and the Transatlantic
Legislators' Dialogue comes here every year as well. And then
there was the U.K.-U.S. Transatlantic--there are a bunch of
these things over there. So there might be some efficiencies to
be found in some of this, I guess is what I am trying to get
at.
But, yeah, I would just urge you to take a look at it.
Obviously, there is a new chairman of the committee over there.
But I don't know if the British-U.S. one is still in existence.
It was at one point.
Someone is nodding their head back there. Does it still
happen?
But, yeah, there are a number of these that are over at the
House Foreign Affairs Committee. I am speaking as former staff
of the committee.
So, in any event, there could be some efficiencies to be
found where you could try to synergize your efforts and maybe
try to save us some money.
But, anyway, I appreciate it.
Yield back.
Ms. Sargus. Thank you.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I now recognize Mr. Strong for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Valadao.
And I thank each of our witnesses for being here today, and
to your dedicated staff, for all the work you do to strengthen
and support the United States Congress.
Dr. Pugh, what are some of the recent Stennis Center
programs or initiatives you are most proud of? And what
measurable impacts have you seen from them?
Mr. Pugh. Some that I am most proud of is with our
Congressional Internship Program we have started making it a
requirement for the congressional staffers that go through our
program to write in our journal of Public Service Review.
And one of the best parts about that is students from all
over the United States who don't have the resources to come and
intern on Capitol Hill, they can read about their stories. Our
journal is available to everybody online at stennis.gov.
And so each spring, summer, and fall cohort that go through
the Congressional Internship Program--and it is from all of
your offices who apply--they write about their experience, and
they can talk about maybe working with some constituents and
just life in D.C., and I think it is really encouraging for
other students to read about that.
So that is something that I am pretty proud of, and it
doesn't cost us any money.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
If additional funding were available, what programmatic
enhancements or expansions would the Center prioritize?
Mr. Pugh. Based on the interest of the Stennis Fellows
Program, there is a possibility that that program can be--we
can, instead of having 30 to 34, that can possibly be increased
slightly. We have a few of our board members who have expressed
interest in possibly growing that in the future. That would be
the primary one.
But one of the best parts about that is, if we were to
increase that in the future, that will create more senior
Stennis fellows.
And I was mentioning earlier that that is how we have been
able to save so much. It is because we do have so much free
labor from these senior-level staffers that volunteer their
time to all of our programs.
So we will have more senior Stennis fellows created.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Ms. Sargus, you mentioned the COIL program provides
unfiltered insights from delegates. How do you vet participants
to ensure that they are not a threat to U.S. national security?
Ms. Sargus. All of our participants are nominated. There is
no self-nomination. There is no online application.
So we have trusted nominators in-country--usually the U.S.
embassy staff--who know who that emerging leader is, and they
provide a list of nominations, and they do the vetting. And
then, of course, they are issued a J-1 visa.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
I know Huntsville, Alabama, had the opportunity to host a
delegation in 2022. Are there any plans to bring future
delegations back to Alabama? And could you walk us through how
that process typically works?
Ms. Sargus. Do we have--yes. Okay. My Alabama guy back
there.
Yes. We do plan--we have done a lot of stuff in Alabama.
The process is that, in our annual grant outreach to our
hosting organizations around the country, we ask who would like
to do this theme or that theme or who would like to host at
what time.
And because these are volunteer organizations, they really
do need to see a calendar well in advance, and we give all of
our current grantees an opportunity to choose next year's
batch.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
What specific programming would COIL be forced to cut
without this increase?
Ms. Sargus. We would probably have to minimize somewhat our
Indo-Pacific parliamentary program, even though we give that a
very high level of priority, but it is the costliest.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
Now, turning to Mr. Crane, your board recently submitted
recommendations for the 119th Congress. What are the most
urgent legislative or policy changes you believe Congress
should consider?
Mr. Crane. In the board's report it makes--the report makes
several recommendations to Congress to maintain parity with
protections in the executive branch and the private sector.
One of those is especially important, and that is to
require legislative branch offices to maintain records of
workplace illnesses and injuries, as is required in the private
sector and as is required in the executive branch. That way,
our OSH investigators have materials that they can consult when
investigating accidents and workplace injuries.
In addition, there is a very straightforward change that
Congress could make to provide comparable nursing protections
to legislative branch employees. Congress recently passed an
act called the PUMP Act, the PUMP Act for working mothers, and
that act expands protections for nursing employees, including
providing reasonable break times and a private space to pump at
work.
But because of what we think is a technical error when that
law was enacted, legislative branch employees were excluded
from coverage. We have notified our oversight committees and
worked with them and provided them with technical language that
would provide that benefit to legislative branch employees.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Crane.
Chairman Valadao, I yield back.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Strong.
If there are no further questions, I would like to thank
Mr. Pugh, Mr. Crane, and Ms. Sargus for being here today.
Members may submit any additional questions for the record.
And the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:52 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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W I T N E S S E S
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Dodaro, Hon. Gene L.............................................. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Halpern, Hon. Hugh Nathanial..................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Swagel, Phillip L................................................ 25
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Awan, Omar....................................................... 97
Prepared statement........................................... 99
Shirek, Jesse.................................................... 104
Prepared statement........................................... 105
Rackey, John D................................................... 109
Prepared statement........................................... 111
Schuman, Daniel.................................................. 116
Prepared statement........................................... 118
Lips, Dan........................................................ 122
Prepared statement........................................... 124
Townsend, James.................................................. 128
Prepared statement........................................... 130
Stern, Michael................................................... 135
Prepared statement........................................... 137
Stewart, Danielle................................................ 142
Prepared statement........................................... 144
Hart, Nicholas................................................... 148
Prepared statement........................................... 150
McGrath, Antoine................................................. 155
Prepared statement........................................... 156
Pugh, Brian...................................................... 170
Prepared statement........................................... 174
Crane, Martin.................................................... 179
Prepared statement........................................... 182
Sargus, Jane..................................................... 187
Prepared statement........................................... 190
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